Prop-tech startup aims to disrupt 3D visualisation space

Foyr is a B2B prop-tech startup, headquartered in Singapore, with development centre in Hyderabad. Foyr’s proprietary visualisation platform combines next-generation visualisation technology and Artificial Intelligence. The startup has till now worked with 80 leading property developers as well as over 150 architects and interior design firms in India and Singapore.

Transforming spaces

Using virtual reality and 3D visualisation technology Foyr transforms a basic space into a dynamic, vibrant environment. “Today, the interior design industry is devoid of any easy to use tools for designing. There isn’t a single solution available in the market that the interior designer herself can use to create realistic designs. There’s another market for home owners that want to do designs themselves. We started off by creating a platform for DIY customers where they could visualise your choices and understand the associated cost, and get the project executed at a single click of a button,” says Shailesh Goswami, Founder and CEO of Foyr, adding that they quickly realised that the visualisation problem was consistent across the real estate industry and built easy to use tools for interior designers, developers and real estate agents.

It has been an eventful journey for Goswami and his team. Foyr built one of its kind online interior design solution in 2015. “We signed up JLL as our investor and strategic customer in 2016. Together we’ve developed the world’s largest 3D portfolio of 3 million sq ft. Then, we opened shop in Singapore in 2017 with our first product to IDs, which changes the way they present designers to customers. We have 1000+ designers on our platform,” states Goswami, sharing that Foyr is rated as only Indian company in the top 20 innovator companies in prop-tech.

Making interior designing simpler

The team is building artificial intelligence in all its solutions so that the interior designers can focus on design and client handling, and not worry about rendering, lighting and deadlines. “Traditionally digital interior design has been a CPU intensive job, requiring highly trained resources and big systems and servers. We want to change that notion. We are constantly pushing the limits on what you can do on low end devices. Our solutions work seamlessly on mobile devices as well,” mentions Goswami.

For architects/designers: For established architects or designers, Foyr offers a new interactive way of presenting their designs. “We aspire to disrupt and replace, traditional presentation methods used by architects or designers,” affirms Goswami, pointing out that most architects create designs in legacy software like Autodesk 3ds Max or Sktechup. The output of these software is typically presented in form of images after “rendering” on heavy duty servers.

By using Foyr offering (called MagikTour), at a click of a button, architects can generate photo-realistic, interactive, immersive walkthroughs of their designs made right out of their favourite software (Autodesk 3ds Max etc). These walkthroughs are extremely light weight yet high quality, they can be opened (or shared) via a link with their clients. “Thus, we can replace all images with immersive real-time walkthroughs on the web right from their favorite software,” he adds. This leads to increased engagement and sales conversion by 63 per cent.

For developers/builders: Foyr enables builders to showcase their large townships in a novel- interactive way to their potential customers over the web. By using the “Storyteller” solution, they are now letting their customers explore their upcoming township in a high quality “video game like” environment on the web or mobile. Foyr enables builders to offer – virtual site visits; any number of virtual mock-up flats; data Integration with their ERP / CRM; builders can now offer visual online booking.

For real estate agents: For commercial developers/office leasing, Foyr offers a platform which automatically generates an office fit-out design that meets the goals of a tenant (“I need 220 seats, 5 cabins, 1 cafeteria etc) in just a few minutes. This offering is called Office3d. “This process usually is done manually by an architect using traditional software and it takes weeks. Moreover, we can present this test-fit as an immersive walkthrough of the design via a web-browser,” explains Goswami.

Target customer segments include an interior designer who has a small or no 3D visualisation team, but wants to handle multiple design projects at a time; any developer looking at online as a sales channel. For real estate agents, any agent who leases property with a seating capacity of more than 50 is a potential customer, is a potential customer.

In India, the company is majorly focused on cities like Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Jaipur. Future plans include expansion to multiple geographies, in particular the US, Europe and South East Asia. The company is also looking at strengthening its core – 3D tech and Machine Learning. Ever since its expansion in global market the company has seen 500 per cent growth in its annual revenue. Recently it raised US$ 2 mn from SRI Capital and closed its Series A funding. Goswami plans to use the money raised in this round to enter the US market.